Dec
8

Game Update

6 Comments

Things are humming along in most of the games I’m playing right now. Just a quick update on all of these before I move on to some Agency info.

LOTRO

Just an FYI, the Monday night group is on Nimrodel server. So, if you want to drop in and say hi…please send Belsirus a tell.

LOTRO continues to impress everyone in the group. I think we’ve hit our stride and the big problem, for me at least, is NOT playing the game. Let me explain. On Monday, we mostly concentrate on group content…so that’s Book quests for the most part. At the end of the night, we decide what level everyone should shoot for the next play session. This keeps us all moving forward, which is something that we were missing in DDO. My problem has been stopping myself at that decided level cap due to the amount of enjoyment I’m having with the game. This has an added bonus of course because I’m concentrating more on crafting (…and fishing believe it or not…) in LOTRO then in any other previous game. Unfortunately, getting crafting materials requires me going out to get them…and there always seems to be a boar sitting on nodes I need. So…there is always a danger of me leveling while getting materials for crafting.

As of last week….LOTRO has pretty much dominated my time when I’m not in EQ2.

I’m glad that some of you are either temped or are looking at getting LOTRO. Honestly, you should at least try it out.

WoW

I didn’t make any progress with my Rogue last week. I think he is still at level 72-ish. My wife, however; continues to play her alliance mage with a very helpful guild and is now level 74.

Eve

If you read my post from last week, then you know what’s coming. I cancelled my two accounts.

This will probably go down as the shortest stint in Eve that I’ve ever done. My plans for galactic domination will have to wait until I understand how this whole private school thing will turn out. I’ll be looking in from time to time to check out patches and such…but for now, Eve is done

I’d like to thank my corp mates for being so helpful to me during my short stay. Hopefully, I’ll be back soon.

EQ2

Ding 74!

I’m slowly, but surely getting to the magic number 75 and I expect to be there by the end of the upcoming weekend. This will mean that I can join RnH in some of the raiding that they do…which will be quite exciting.

I almost puttered out of quests last week and I would have done a collective “wtf?” if it weren’t for Gaft who showed me some areas within Kunark that I completely overlooked. Now, I have more quests than I know what to do with.

I continue to really enjoy this game. I am finding it slower to level in the 70’s than before. Again, don’t know if that is a game mechanic or that I’m not being as efficient as I use to be. Might be LOTRO ;)

One last point….I have no idea what to do with WoW. It is a great offering in terms of PvE, but with LOTRO being what it is, I have trouble figuring out whether I’m scratching the same itch with both games. I’m not the only one apparently.

D out.

Posted in Blah blah
6 Comments Posted by Darren

6 Responses to "Game Update"

  • syncaine says:
    December 8, 2008 at 1:05 pm

    LoTRO is certainly well crafted, especially pre-35. I’m curious to see if you guys are able to stick with it once it slows down a bit. That’s one thing I’ve never managed with LoTRO, despite two solid efforts. Great pace until about 30-35, and then a bad combination of ‘kill 100 foozles’ and leveling falling off a cliff made it difficult to log back in.

  • Rob says:
    December 8, 2008 at 1:25 pm

    Assuming they still have the offer, I fully plan on buying into the lifetime membership once I actually get around to buying the Moria expansion. Right now I am just too wrapped up in WoW and real life stuffs. I think that LOTRO does scratch the same itch that WoW does, but for me, EQ2 scratches that itch too. I think that in the end it is all about the people you know in game. I am hooked in WoW right now because I have a group of friends playing it at the same level of interest as me.

    I really wish that more MMOs had a lifetime membership deal. :\

  • wilhelm2451 says:
    December 8, 2008 at 2:56 pm

    The lifetime deal has worked out nicely for me. I have popped in and out of the game quite a bit.

    Darren, Gaft is the master of leveling in EQ2, is he not? How many levels did you get while he went from rolling new characters to level 73?

  • Blue Kae says:
    December 8, 2008 at 3:17 pm

    I’ll second the lifetime subscription deal. While it takes a bit for the money saving to kick in, I like the fact that it removes any guilt if I go for weeks without playing. With EQ2 and WoW I always had felt like I needed to play for at least a bit in order to justify paying the subscription. Of course you can always cancel and resub, but once I’ve canceled an account that increases the inertia against resubbing since I have to go to the site and activate my account and then patch up the client. So with LoTRO I can take a couple of weeks or months off and get right back in the moment the impulse strikes.

    Eve doesn’t cause the same level of guilt, but I think that’s largely because if you’re playing the training game you’re popping on every few days to pick a new skill.

    What level range are you guys on Nimrodel? I play primarily on Landroval, but I was considering popping on Nimrodel to say hi.

  • Danshir says:
    December 9, 2008 at 4:41 am

    I think lifetime subscription deals are a fine thing for players, but I doubt World of Warcraft would ever adopt such a system. While the players themselves save money in the long run and remove that ” I have to play or I’m wasting money ” syndrome *I have it too*, a company like Blizzard would probably lose money in the long run, and I don’t see them doing that.

    Grats on 74 btw =)

  • Adam says:
    December 9, 2008 at 3:23 pm

    @ Blue:

    We’re all currently between 18-20… still little Nazghul fodder :)

    One of the big problems we had with DDO was that lack of satisfaction that comes with only having “15″ levels. I know they have the 5 mini-levels within a level… but frankly they suck. 1 little dinky AA-like point every mini-ding doesn’t really feel like progress. Even if the levelling slows down in LOTRO post 30, what we’ll probably end up doing is doing all the fellowship quests while we’re playing together, and leave the solo quests to play in our free time… so not only are we getting phat lewtz from quest completions, we also have the ability to craft/deed/etc on our own time. I think that will *feel* more like progress, even if we’re not levelling every week once we get to that point.

    LOTRO has a lot more going for it than DDO when it comes to things to do outside missions. Deeds, exploration, crafting, working on getting racial & class skills… must… resist… urge… to go play LOTRO…. And the game’s gorgeous… so it’s pretty hard to complain when your jaw hits the floor every 10-15 mins when you come across this vista in the game and you feel like you’re inside a LOTR movie.

    just my 2 cp.

    Adam
    Host, Witty Ranter

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